hypotenuse
by justjoy
Summary: /Honestly./ [Yui, Koumei, and their division of labour. For Poirot Café's SS #24 – "scarf".]


_for Poirot Café's SS#24: scarf, and my other favourite (and ludicrously underrepresented) characters._

* * *

The scarf comes a gift from Kan-chan.

...insofar as "gift" equates to an elegantly wrapped box she finds on the morning of her second day at the prefectural headquarters, looking rather out of place on her desk amidst the (already accumulating) paperwork.

She doesn't even need to open it to know what's inside – the delicately embossed logo alone is hint enough. And given that she remembers having mentioned it as her favourite brand over one of their recent dinners...

It's a luxury item, more than she could ever afford on an officer's salary (or even now as a detective), and he's just left it sitting on her work desk.

Typical.

Honestly, Yui thinks she could wring the man by his neck sometimes. Kai-senpai would agree, no doubt.

Luckily, it's early enough that the office is still mostly empty (at least of people who aren't staring blearily into their coffee cups in search of wakefulness), so Yui covers the box with her coat as she sets her bag down and starts up her computer. Kan-chan might be able to get away with his reputation for flouting rules or ignoring them entirely, but Yui's fought tooth and nail for this position and she fully intends to stay.

She's just about to start reading her new emails – which hopefully includes the coroner's preliminary findings from the murder case they'd received yesterday, or Kan-chan (well, _Yamato-keibu_ ) will start breathing possibly literal fire – when there's a voice from behind her. "Already at work, I see, Uehara-keiji?"

Yui turns to find the other inspector holding two takeaway cups from the nearby cafe. "Ah, Morofushi-keibu, good morning!"

He nods briskly, and sets one of the cups down on her desk. "I thought I would spare you from experiencing the breakroom coffee this early on, but I see Kansuke-kun has bested me on that front."

"That..." Yui trails off, then realises that a vague outline of the box is still visible under her coat. "Oh! Yes, I found it on my table this morning."

" _Honestly,_ " Morofushi-keibu mutters, almost despairingly, so they're clearly in agreement there. "I did offer my assistance with any plans he had, but I needn't tell you how that went. Let's hope it's at least a passable design."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Yui answers, carefully avoiding thoughts of the scarce few times ( _disasters_ , more accurately) that they'd let Kan-chan pick his non-work outfits without supervision. "Thank you for the coffee, and please look after me from now on!"

"It's nothing. I intended to congratulate you yesterday, but I got called out on a case." He pauses. "Also, I quite assure you it runs both ways now."

Yui blinks. "Eh?"

"With you ar–"

(The words are interrupted by a very familiar outburst from Kan-chan's slightly ajar door: "–t do you mean, you haven't got a cause of death yet? Do I have to wait for those bodies to _dissect themselves_? One–")

"–around, as I was saying," he continues with a pointedly raised eyebrow, "at least one of us might actually get work done around here. So I'm counting on you as well, Yui-san."

She definitely doesn't manage to stifle her laugh this time. "Understood, sir!"

Morofushi-keibu smiles faintly before heading off to his office and leaving Yui to her work.

Which is just as well – she might be an expert in Kansuke-wrangling, yes, but he's going to have her head all the same if he catches her slacking off, and talking to _Koumei_ of all people would definitely qualify.

So Yui puts the box away in a drawer for later, takes a generous sip of the coffee (strong and black, just the way she likes it), and starts her second day as a detective.

(Kai-senpai will be proud to hear it, she thinks, making a mental note to call him later over lunch – and this time she'll make sure Kan-chan gets on the phone too, even if she has to blackmail him into doing it.

Yui still has photos from his last fashion fiasco that she's quite sure he doesn't know abou–

– oh god, she _hopes_ it's not one of those garish samurai prints he'd really been into at one point. Even tartan would be better than that.)

.

(The scarf _is_ tartan, as it turns out, a pattern of pale colours on velvety silk that she wouldn't have picked for herself but looks... surprisingly good, actually, given Kan-chan's dismal track record.

Morofushi-keibu agrees after a long moment of consideration, and Yui ends up having to break up another of their arguments somewhere in between – but really, she thinks, she wouldn't have it any other way.)

* * *

 **END**

* * *

 _look its almost 2am and i wrote this on mobile in less than three hours so there are probably errors but_ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 _(in case it isn't Obvious, this takes place ~6 years prior to canon, aka before Kai's death)_

 _((also gosho i will pay you 20 $ for more nagano files pLS THANK U,,))_


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